WORTH NOTING ON TV

ByAlan BunceJanuary 12, 1993

MONDAY

Katharine Hepburn: All About Me (TNT, 8-10:30 p.m.): Very few people - legends or otherwise - could justify a documentary with so unabashedly self-centered a title, but Hepburn is one of them. In case a reminder is needed, she is film history's most honored Academy Award performer (four Best Actress Oscars, 12 nominations). Her cool brilliance before cameras probably classifies as genius, and it certainly places her among the handful of our generation's performers who are truly distinctive. In a TV inte rview not long ago, Ryan O'Neal, co-star of a movie that Hepburn made recently, referred to the awesome experience of working with the "85-year-old goddess." This profile - of which Hepburn is both subject and host - marks the first time she has allowed TV crews into her Connecticut house, or made public her home movies, or shown her personal memorabilia. It's all very untypical of this independent and private person.

Frontline (PBS, 9-10 p.m.): Among the unusually heavy barrage of pre- and post-inauguration programs being offered on TV, one of the more promising is "Clinton Takes Over," a preview of his presidency that's calling itself "the first inside view." That's a bit of hype, perhaps, yet "Frontline" did gain a remarkable degree of access to the Clinton transition team's planning and preparations. The result, inevitably, is informed guesswork, but it is guesswork in the well-grounded manner typical of this thou ghtful documentary series.